In January of 2012, my friend and colleague, Shaun Bettinson, approached me about an idea he had. He had been wanting to start a photography project seeing as he’d just gotten into photography, but he didn’t want to do something on his own. He had the idea to do something quite different altogether. After several brainstorming sessions, we developed the concept. Then, I filmed and edited the first video.
PART I
April 21st, 2012 – I Love Taiwan – Part I launched. Almost over night, the video exploded on social media in Taiwan.
It quickly reached the 500,000 view mark.
Part II
We were overwhelmed by the response to the video. The movement had begun. This second video shows what happened.
Kaohsiung Event
July 1st, 2012 – The I Love Taiwan movement gathered in Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan to take an epic picture in the shape of the I Love Taiwan logo. It was an incredibly hot summer day, exacerbated by standing on the concrete for hours. Still, over 700 committed participants braved the heat to take this picture!
World Record Mosaic
October 10th, 2012 – The I Love Taiwan campaign finally reached its epic conclusion in Taichung, Taiwan. 2012 participants held red, black and white boards over their heads to form the I Love Taiwan logo. The strictest efforts were taken to ensure that everything went according to The Guinness Book of Records requirements. The previous record for most people in a human mosaic had just been set by 1936 Pakistani students. Our record was submitted and accepted. The city of Taichung proudly held this record for 3 years until it was broken in 2015, in Iraq.
